


Everyone's Enemy

by EvilReceptionistOfDoom



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Alien Biology, Asexual Character, Borg - Freeform, Dominion War (Star Trek), Federation legal system, Gen, Jem'Hadar - Freeform, LLF Comment Project, Memoirs, Original Character-centric, POV First Person, Post-Dominion War (Star Trek), Prison, Psychotherapy, Revisionist History, Section 31 (Star Trek), Species-ism, Telepathy, Unreliable Narrator, Vorta - Freeform, Worldbuilding, cloning, history of the Dominion, see endnotes for a brand-new illustration!, skip the Dukat chapter if you're uncomfortable with creepy and unwanted advances
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-22
Updated: 2019-07-30
Packaged: 2019-08-05 20:21:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 19,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16374398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvilReceptionistOfDoom/pseuds/EvilReceptionistOfDoom
Summary: Serving a hundred-year sentence in Federation prison for war crimes, former Dominion Fleet Supervisor Aryl 9 is ordered to write a memoir as part of her rehabilitation.  In writing it, she intends to set the record straight about the Dominion, the Founders, the Vorta, and her own role in the War.The Founders are not the founders.  The Vorta were not 'elevated' from primitive tree-dwelling bushbabies.  The Dominion encountered the Borg centuries before the Federation.  The Federation legal system isn't half so even-handed as it claims to be.  And one person really can have an indelible effect on history.





	1. My first resurrection; The true origins of the Dominion

They say that the first resurrection is always the hardest.  That's definitely an understatement.  
  
It's a sickening sensation, feeling the life go out of you and then suddenly opening your eyes in a new body.  My first time, I'm told, I wouldn't stop screaming for a full minute.  I think that's an exaggeration: it couldn't have been more than thirty seconds.  
  
"Calm down, Aryl," the restoration manager said in a soothing tone, pushing me back against the sterile padded table and stroking my hair maternally.  This was a worker at the cloning facility whose entire job was calming people down while they awoke in a new body and tried to come to terms with however the last body had died.  She was good at her job, it seemed; I stopped shrieking and relaxed a little, then looked at her for reassurance.  She smiled.  "You're back on Kurill Beta, at the Ramasa Clone Storage Facility, where your parents banked your first-generation backups.  It's been about eight weeks since you died."  
  
"Died," I repeated, struggling to believe it.  
  
The restoration manager smiled gently, brushing my hair carefully behind one ear.  "Yes, Aryl.  You were killed by a Burrower raiding party on Tora Kai Tau.  Your colleagues recovered you just a few hours later.  Most of the elapsed time is simply a result of how far they had to travel to return you here."  
  
I closed my eyes, trying to remember.  I could picture the cool, lush greenery of Tora Kai Tau, feel the misty air against my skin, the strands of hair plastered against my face by the humidity.  I had spotted a bright red epiphyte across a ferny hollow and went to investigate, when...  My body tensed.  A whole unit of Burrower infantry had been camped out in that hollow, hidden behind a screen of vegetation, and in my quest to get a closer look at the epiphyte I'd stumbled right into the middle of their camp.  "I can still feel the laser beam piercing my chest," I whispered, opening my eyes again, trying to will the memory to dissipate.    
  
"Death can be very jarring," said the restoration manager sympathetically.  "But that's all over now.  You're home, safe and sound, and ready to begin a new life.  Welcome back, Aryl 2."  
  
\---  
  
I was a plant biologist.  That was my specialization.  In fact, it was my passion.  I adored categorizing species into evolutionary trees, cataloguing their traits and variability, comparing and contrasting specimens from different functional groups and debating which environmental forcings had led them to develop their particular adaptations.  I took great pride in being able to collect new species to bring back to the Grand Arboretum on Kurill Prime, the largest and most diverse botanical garden in the Dominion.  If I'd had my way, my life would never have diverged from this path, and I'd have been perfectly content to never do anything more exciting than describe a variant mode of photosynthesis or a different style of vascular transport.  
  
But, of course, that wasn't to be.  Circumstances conspired to deliver me down a track that led to my becoming, at one point, the greatest living hero in the Gamma Quadrant, and at another, the most dangerous.  I've had an exceptionally long life, even for a member of a species that has made itself effectively immortal.  And it's because of that - not because of Dr Chaudhary's suggestion - that I've felt compelled to take down this memoir.  I feel it's my duty to defend my race, to restore our history, to be the spokesperson for and the apologist of the Dominion and the Vorta alike.  I understand why we're so reviled, and I might even grant some of that hate is warranted - but I refuse to let my species take the blame for what we've done as pawns of the Changelings.  The Changelings ruined us, ruined the Jem'Hadar, ruined the Dominion.  They should be held accountable for their actions.  
  
You'll notice I don't call them Founders.  And that's because they aren't.  The Dominion is not their creation; they've simply taken it over and turned it to their will, like they do anything that stands in their way.  That's why I'm writing this.  I want the Federation, the Alliance, the historians of the future, my Federation-mandated criminal-rehabilitation team, and especially my own people to know what's been lost here.  I'm so tired of hearing the Vorta called duplicitous, cowards, weaklings, snakes, pitiable automatons, the Changelings' slaves.  I want vindication.  Dr M. K. R. Chaudhary, the counselor assigned to me as part of my rehabilitation, suggested that writing it all down would be 'therapeutic'.  Who am I to argue with the Federation penal system?  It's been well over a millennium; it's more than time the truth came out.  The Alliance War Crimes Tribunal wouldn't listen to me, but maybe someone else will.  
  
The Dominion is more than ten thousand years old.  It was founded by a small coalition of the most advanced races of the Gamma Quadrant at that time, species who chose to ally with each other for the sake of sharing technology and information and using that exchange to explore the furthest reaches of the quadrant.  The founding members were four: the Elan, the Arthans, the Selquedi, and the Vorta.  This is the history every schoolchild learned when I was growing up on the homeworld, a history the Changelings erased when they decided that the only Founders there were were themselves.  But the Changelings only joined the Dominion two thousand years ago, and the only reason they were admitted into it was because we, the Vorta, vouched for them.  Because we, as a people, are naturally trusting - naturally naive.  We were a peaceful species without delusions or ambitions of grandeur.  It's true we never had much in the way of art or poetry, but what we lacked in culture we made up for in scientific achievement.  Our own planet was bland and dark; we wanted to seek out more, to explore the other worlds in our star system, and then to explore other star systems, looking for new forms of life and new biologies to study.  We were absolute prodigies when it came to genetics - that much ought to be obvious - but we also developed a self-sustaining global power grid, circuitry that didn't degrade over time, computer systems sophisticated enough to store a person's entire essence on a chip the size of two fingers, warp propulsion efficient enough to get us around our local sector with mere grains of dilithium, since the Kurill system has almost none of the stuff.  Our technological prowess was what earned our invitation to be a founding member of the original Dominion.  The Elan were energy beings on the verge of ascending to a higher plane of existence, the Arthans lived a thousand years each and had travelled the entire galaxy and beyond in search of intellectual equals, and the Selquedi had been terraforming and travelling between worlds for centuries before we even escaped our planet's gravitational pull; but we were insatiable in our search for knowledge and our efforts to better our people and our planet, and we were friendly and likeable, and despite our small numbers we had managed to make ourselves practically immortal through the use of neural transfer technology and cloning.  The other founding members didn't care that we were, at the time of the Dominion's creation, just beginning to explore other star systems.  They could see our potential, and they chose to let us take part in their exclusive coalition because they knew how much we would add to the alliance.  It was a favor our people never forgot.  When the Changelings discovered us, or we discovered them, and they said they were also on a quest for knowledge, that they wanted to explore and learn about 'Solids' and share their discoveries with others, we believed them.    
  
Naivete, as I have mentioned, is a species trait: a curse that keeps on giving.  
  
By the time that I was born, of course, this was all ancient history.  I'm not so old that I remember the glory days of the Dominion, before the Changelings began to dismantle it from the inside and everything started going wrong.  When I was born, the Dominion was deep in the midst of war with an insectoid race called the Burrowers, the Elan had abandoned the corporeal plane so long ago that they were more mythical than historic, the Selquedi were nearly extinct following the Burrowers' destruction of their homeworld, and the Arthans had begun to show the symptoms of a mysterious plague that would ultimately prove their destruction.  The Changelings stepped up to fill the leadership void - we Vorta certainly didn't care to be in charge, and the Arthans and what was left of the Selquedi had more pressing problems.    
  
I had an idyllic childhood - and rightly so.  Our planet was a paradise.  But I had no idea how close that all was to collapsing.


	2. An overview of my lives; Childhood; Gul Dukat

For the first five and a half of my eight lives, I was a plant biologist.  During my sixth life I did something that distiguished me, not only among Vorta, but among sentients throughout my quadrant.  In doing so, I died, and my seventh life began with me a hero.  That was the longest of my lives - almost five hundred years - and it was also the one that saw me first assimilated by the Borg, and then rescued, and the same that saw the Dominion complete its transition from a coalition of species dedicated to cooperative exploration and technological exchange into the Changelings' multi-tool for use against Solids of every stripe and structure.  Aryl 8 was not me; she's long dead now.  My eighth life is the current one: Aryl 9, the last of her line, the last natural-born Vorta, the last unmodified, the last vestige of a civiliation which even the Federation would have admired in its heyday, and the so-called Butcheress of Cardassia, because it was my fleet that levelled the largest population centers on Cardassia Prime.  Nevermind that by the time those orders were given I was adrift in a crippled fighter with a two-foot piece of shrapnel embedded in my side.  My fleet, my responsibility, apparently.  
  
\---  
  
I was born to a pair of academics on Kurill Beta, the first planet our species travelled to and colonized.  Kurill Prime is cool temperate; Kurill Beta is much hotter, with vast seasonal swings in temperature, no polar ice caps, and a thicker atmosphere.  My mother was a propulsion research engineer, and my father was a materials scientist.  They designed engines.  I remember going to a museum with them when I was only a few months old, just beginning to walk but not yet verbal.  My mother explained the concept of a museum telepathically, and my father lifted me onto his shoulders so that I could touch the skeleton of a Selqued tusked morabeast which hung in the lobby.  There were exhibits of minerals, biological specimens, cultural curiosities from other worlds, and a special exhibit dedicated to our own star system.  My parents pushed into my thoughts impressions of how exciting it was to learn and discover, trying to imbue in me their own fascination with the unknown.  They used words, but also images, feelings, suggestions.  I soaked it up like a towel.  The museum took my infantile idea of the universe and exploded it: I had thought there was nothing beyond my own city, yet here saw that there were cities upon cities upon worlds scattered over a vast and endless expanse of space, and that beyond our own region of the galaxy stretched an infinity of the uncharted, waiting to be found.  My visits to that museum were formational.  If one building could hold such wonders, what could there be among the stars?  My parents' efforts had succeeded better than they could have hoped.  By the time I came of age, there was no doubt in my mind that I was destined to be an explorer.    
  
\---  
  
The counselor told me today that I shouldn't feel compelled to make this chronicle chronological.  When I asked him what other way there could be to write a memoir, he said that I should try to simply write what comes to mind.  I wonder if he's worried that I'm just going to write about plant biology?  Or maybe he's hoping I'll skip to a 'good part' - my encounters with the Borg, say, or something equally traumatic.  He read everything I'd written so far and his only comment was, "This is an interesting story you're writing, Aryl.  I think this could reveal some facets of your personality that we haven't explored yet."  I have no idea how to take that.  The prison's psionic suppression field means I can't sense his emotions, and I've never been good at reading people through their body language the way non-telepaths do.  Does he think I'm making this up?  In his mind, I expect, this is all some elaborate fiction, and he sees himself as drawing creativity from a stone.  He's already made it clear he considers my people emotionless and without conscience; why not devoid of invention as well?  It's that kind of attitude that makes people deride and pity the Vorta and discount us as only borderline sentient, the same way they think of the Jem'Hadar.  They think we're made in huge batches of a single model, assembled at a factory like a new phaser rifle or custom built like a personal transport, with options and add-ons selected by the Changelings to suit their needs, and that we're just as superficial and disposable as any manufactured thing.  You'd think, after twice-weekly sessions with my assigned counselor for more than a year now, that he'd know better.  I've been called irritating, sullen, opinionated, self-destructive, rude, aberrational, brash, disorganized, aggressive, and of course naive - but never superficial, and never a liar.  At least, not til now.  
  
This list brings to mind an incident with the Cardassian Gul Dukat, which I will take down here in the interest of following my counselor's instructions like a good inmate.  I was on Cardassia Prime with the top brass of the occupation, because the Founder - the lady changeling who orchestrated the war - believes strongly in keeping one's friends close and one's enemies closer.  Plus, I was field commander for the fleet assigned to protecting Cardassia itself, which necessitated my being proximal to said fleet.  I spent a great deal of time on the planet, and one day, after going for a brisk run, I returned to headquarters sweaty and a little sunburned.  Cardassia is an exceptionally warm planet, especially compared to Kurill Prime, which is on the cold side of temperate, and without the ever-cloudy skies of Kurill Beta.  We Vorta don't tolerate sun particularly well, pale as we are, but I liked to get out when I could.  
  
I bumped into Weyoun almost as soon as I entered the headquarters.  He gave me a look of supreme disgust.  
  
"Good morning," I said.  
  
"Aryl," he said, with the same weary exasperation he normally reserved for Corat Damar, "you need to do something about... that."  He waved a hand in my direction.  When I said I didn't know what he meant, he curled his lip and said, "You're so... sweaty.  I can't even look at you when you're like this.  It simply isn't natural.  You'd think those robots would have had the good sense to deactivate your sweat glands."  
  
"Sweat is natural," I said.  
  
"Not anymore.  Please, go shower at once.  You can't be seen like this - you're as repulsive right now as Legate Damar after a late night drinking."  
  
I bit back some jibe about designer babies and went to the shower facilities as ordered.  I was in the midst of washing when a voice interrupted my thoughts: "Did you enjoy your run?"  Skrain Elmo Dukat, standing in front of the mirror, glanced briefly at his own reflection before he turned openly to face me, as if he were trying to establish a legitimate reason for being in the women's washroom.  
  
"Isn't it considered inappropriate in your culture for a male to walk in on a female while she's bathing?" I said, casting a scowl in his direction.  
  
"But your species hasn't any reason to care, has it?"  He nodded my way, doubtless to indicate the lack of visible genitalia.  Our species' mode of reproduction is drastically different from that of most humanoid races, and both male and female Vorta lack what are considered typical organs among such.  Combined with our unique metabolism, it leads to an absence of 'normal' features - an absence that many species find disturbing, amusing, or outright weird.  Dukat, on the other hand, only seemed all the more fascinated.  This wasn't the first time he'd walked in on me like this, either.  
  
I sniffed and shut off the water.  "Which leads me to wonder, Dukat, why you show such interest in me, considering our species aren't sexually compatible."  
  
"That doesn't mean I don't enjoy the view."  He smiled and watched as I toweled off.  I could almost feel his eyes sweeping over my skin, and the emotions spilling off of him repulsed me viscerally.  But I had resolved to behave in a professional manner around our Cardassian allies, so I let him be and instead focused on dressing and brushing out my hair the way I would have if he hadn't been present.  
  
When I didn't say anything more, he continued, "Besides, I've heard your diplomats are well-educated in a variety of techniques, so as to aid in their... negotiations."  
  
"You may have noticed that I'm not much of a diplomat."  
  
"But you are a fighter," he said, moving closer.  He had an eager look in his eyes that I didn't like.  "I've seen you practicing.  I happen to know from experience that a woman who knows how to fight the way you do knows how to make love with just as much... conviction.  Admit it, Aryl - aren't you a little curious?  I admire strong women."  By now he was less than half a meter away.  "You're exceptionally strong, aren't you?  Don't you think we'd make a stimulating match?"  He touched my shoulders with both hands, intentionally highlighting how much taller he was than I.  Up til then I had been trying to ignore him... but now he was blocking the path to my boots.  I straightened and pushed his hands away.  
  
"Move," I said.  
  
"Do you have somewhere you need to be?"  Teasingly.  Smiling.  I knew from his file that Dukat had a particular fondness for Bajoran women; it wasn't much of a stretch to extrapolate his tastes to other non-Cardassians.  And he did like strong women.  But he had been buzzing around me far too much of late, and like a whining insect that gets too close, it was high time he got squashed.  
  
"Gul Dukat," I said coolly, "I am not interested in pursuing a relationship with anyone - especially not a Cardassian, and especially - _especially_ \- not you.  I have quite a lot of duties to attend to, and I don't have time to waste listening to your overtures.  Next time you inhibit my ability to perform my job, I promise you, I won't hesitate to remove you from my presence by any means necessary.  Am I being clear?"  
  
The Cardassian's smile morphed away, his charm instantly replaced with disdain.  "So it's true," he sneered.  "You really are sexless drones.  Don't trouble yourself with threats, Fleet Supervisor - I doubt I'll have any reason to bother you again."  His voice oozed derision.  He looked me over quickly one last time, the same way I'd seen a geneticist look at a defective Jem'Hadar before it was terminated.  Then he turned and left.  
  
I suppose that another humanoid in that situation - a Bajoran, perhaps - would have felt threatened.  But the only thing I felt was irritation.  Gul Dukat didn't bother me because he was lecherous, or because he was ruthless.  He bothered me because he was so utterly full of himself that he honestly believed I was interested in him.  Because what woman wouldn't be?  He was a small, insignificant man who had convinced himself of his own importance, and he felt the need to remind everyone around him of that importance at every turn.  Weyoun had the patience for that sort of thing, but I didn't have the benefit of personality traits hand-coded into my DNA to make me better at public relations.  I had the genetics my parents had given me, and those genes made it hard to disguise just how much I hated Elmo Dukat and his posturing.


	3. Reproduction and life extension via cloning

The Vorta didn't always reproduce via laboratory.  Cloning was originally developed as a means of life extension; using it to custom-design your child's characteristics came much later.  My parents had that option, but for whatever reason - nostalgia, traditionalism, maybe a weakness for the romantic - they chose to conceive me in the natural way.  By that time, such a decision was rare; designer babies had become the norm.  Within just a few decades, natural conception was abandoned altogether.  Instead, the parents would combine their own DNA at a cloning facility and make changes from there, using computer resequencers to create what they considered the ideal child and then producing a generation of copies on-site so they wouldn't have to later.  This had the benefit of ensuring the eradication of all genetic diseases and defects, as well as being faster, simpler, and physically less demanding than normal reproduction.  It also gave the Changelings an easy way to alter us as a species without our knowing.  To this day I believe they must have had a key role in pushing this cultural shift along.  
  
It is true, however, that the old way is taxing, to say the least.  The parents have to hole themselves up in a room somewhere for a week or more while the child develops - sometimes as much as a month - and they are unresponsive for the duration, deep in a telepathic trance that blocks out everything else.  I'm unsure how much detail to give concerning the actual process - what a Federation reader might find offensive or not.  We never had any taboos about discussing reproduction, nor had we any of the complicated customs and rituals surrounding coupling that most humanoid societies seem to have developed.  Vorta mate for life - or did - and pair-bonding, once complete, is total and irreversible.  But choosing a partner with whom to conceive a child never seems to have been as fraught with drama for us as it is for you Alpha-Quadrant humanoids.  Your literature is full of "love triangles" and infidelity and angst and jealous mates murdering each other.  So far as I can tell, our people never had any of that.  
  
I once asked my parents how they met and decided to bond, and they told me a fairly straightforward account of how, as colleagues at the university in our province on the homeworld, they acquired a mutual respect for each other which developed into close friendship.  Vorta telepathy is much stronger with other Vorta than across species; my mother said that her thoughts resonated with my father's, and she meant this literally.  Mates choose each other not only based on affection and intimacy, but on how their brainwaves interact.  A sympathetic resonance bonds a couple together.  By mutually focusing on increasing the resonance, the couple cause biochemical changes in each other's brains that bind them together telepathically, and once this change has occurred such a resonance can never be achieved with another.  I understand that the death of one member of a bonded pair is both physically and mentally traumatic for the surviving mate, and this was what inspired our scientists to start seeking immortality in the first place.  
  
The cloning process has, indeed, gotten us Vorta as close to achieving immortality as we'll likely ever get.  While still an infant, a Vorta's genetic code is recorded and used to make a first generation of 'backups': blank-minded cloned bodies that are allowed to age with the original to adulthood, then are kept in stasis until such occasion as the original dies.  At that point, the original's memories and 'self' - equivalent to a Human's soul, a Vulcan's katra, a Bajoran's pah, and so on - are downloaded from the deceased using an NTD, or neural transfer device, and uploaded into a clone, who will then lead another full life until the process repeats.  A generation of clones usually runs ten or less; any more than that and the genetic signal starts to break down.  Later generations can be made using the genetic data from the original so as to reduce signal degradation.  If the dead person's neural signature isn't downloaded within a certain time period - about forty-eight hours, now, but it used to be much less - then their self and memories are lost, or may be only partially recoverable.  The same problem occurs when the manner of death involves serious brain damage.  If the original's self cannot be recovered, the clone is activated and allowed to become a true person.  Usually the deceased has a memory backup on file which can be used to aid in this process; the less material available to transfer to the clone, the less like their predecessor they will be.  It's not a flawless system, but it has allowed many to live a multiplicity of lifetimes, myself included.

I've been lucky, of course.  My lives have been long and my deaths were all such that my self was able to be recovered completely, so that I can say with confidence that I am the same person who was born on Kurill Beta over fifteen hundred years ago - Aryl the plant biologist, who watched the Changelings take over and transform the Dominion.  Others I have known have not been so lucky.  For a well-known example, Weyoun, the Founder's personal favorite of our race, died by disintegration once and another time by transporter accident, and each time his new iteration had a very different personality from the one that was lost.  He was fastidious about backing up his memories, so someone who didn't know him personally might not have noticed the differences; but there's no way to back up one's self.  You can't download your soul and remain alive.

To use a more personal example: when I was first assimilated by the Borg, I was missing and presumed dead for two decades.  The Changelings could have used that opportunity to end my line once and for good - but instead, they chose to activate my next clone.  When I was rescued from the collective and de-assimilated, there were two Aryls at once: myself, Aryl 7; and Aryl 8, the replacement.  We looked the same and had several personality traits in common because we had been cloned from the same source; but the similarities ended there.  Further, the Founder had elected not to upload my memories into Aryl 8, hoping to ensure my dangerous knowledge died with me.  They had also monkeyed around a bit with her genetics in an effort to instill the instinctive belief that the Changelings are gods.  Needless to say, two Aryls could not be tolerated, and ultimately they deemed that one of us should die to preserve the order of things.  Aryl 8 was the casualty of that decision.  I can't pretend I'm not grateful.

This isn't to say there are no differences between clones.  There are some things that can't be downloaded - things controlled by hormone balances, for instance - and those lead to little changes between members of a line, even if they are the same person.  I have noticed my personality alter slightly with each new life.  Aryl Prime was absentminded compared to Aryl 2, and 2 was bolder than 3 but not as coordinated, and so on.  But the differences are minor; it's always still just been me.

All this said, I believe myself to be the last naturally-born Vorta in existence.  My genetics were determined by the random combination of my parents' DNA, not by a scientist in a laboratory.  I take a perverse pride in that fact.  It makes for many undesirable traits - the fact that I still sweat, for instance, sometimes profusely, or my inability to stay calm and pleasant in the face of someone like Elmo Dukat.  It also, however, means that I can trust that no unseen artificial hand has controlled my actions or the course of my life.  When I make a bad decision, I can take responsibility for it.  I don't have to second-guess my thoughts or philosophies.  Seeing how helpless my people can be against their programming, I can't help but thank my parents' romanticism.  Their nostalgia saved me.


	4. Federation prisons; My frustrations with my counselor

Federation prisons - apologies, 'reorientation centers' - are positively luxurious compared to those I've seen under other governments.  My cell is about the same size as the supervisor's quarters on a typical warship, with a bed, a desk, a chair, a bureau, a sink, a mirror, and a sonic shower.  The front wall is just a forcefield facing the opposite side of a corridor.  I have no idea who the inhabitants of the neighboring cells are; the prison's psionic suppression field prevents me from trying to communicate, and the prison floorplan prevents me from seeing them.  I've been able to hear muffled voices, now and again, but the walls are well-soundproofed, and it's not as if any of us have anyone to talk to.  I tried shouting to the next cell, but I never got a response.  I suspect they have some sort of soundwave-dispersal system in place to prevent the inmates doing as much.  Meals are administered in the cells, so there isn't a mess hall where prisoners can visit with each other.  A holographic projection of a wall will periodically appear where the forcefield is, so I assume the reason I've never seen anyone walk past my cell, nor seen any cells when walking the corridor, is because they block the view.  I don't understand the point of keeping us isolated from one another.  Perhaps the intention is to prevent prison revolts?  I find the whole thing frustrating and dull.  
  
But we do much more than sit around in our cells all day.  The Federation is interested in rehabilitating their prisoners - they say so often enough.  The assumption is that our crimes were due to circumstances beyond our control; therefore, they seek to determine the exact nature of those circumstances and remedy them.  Part of that remedy includes my twice-a-week meetings with Dr. M. K. R. Chaudhary, my assigned counselor, whose proper name I have yet to discover.  I also meet with a rehabilitation team once a month, which includes Dr Chaudhary, the warden of my wing in the prison facility, the medical doctor who does my bi-monthly physicals and who would be administering drug therapy if I had agreed to it, and a Federation public advocate who teleconferences in via subspace.  The advocate is the same one who was assigned to me during the war crimes trial, a disinterested red-haired human named Declan Caroll.  The warden is a Vulcan who never talks except to call the meetings to order and dismiss us at the end.  The current doctor is friendly, a human named Anna Mwangi, but it's a temporary assignment for her; both she and the warden are due to be switched out in a few months.  Dr Mwangi likes to make small talk.  Last time I went in she asked outright if it's uncomfortable sleeping on my spinal implants, which are raised and go all the way from the lumbosacral joint to the occipital bun.  It's funny, because they used to bother me quite a bit, but now I'm so accustomed to them that I don't even notice.  
  
I guess a lot of things are like that.  You can adjust to anything, given enough time.  I'm even adjusting to prison life.  I know the faces of all the guards in my wing, and the names of those who are willing to talk to me.  I have the daily schedule so ingrained now that I wake up about two breaths before the lights go on each morning.  
  
Each day I get an hour of "yard time", which means a prison guard comes to the cell and escorts me down the hall to a fenced-in balcony to get some fresh air.  Through the links in the fence there's an expansive view of the ocean that covers most of this planet, and the breeze is salty and generally pleasant.  The balcony hasn't got anything on it, though, except a bench and a couple of exercise bars.  There's never anyone there except me; the guard will drop me off, lock the door and leave, and they don't come back til the hour's up.  I guess they know I don't have much chance of escaping, considering the fence is electrified and the psionic suppression field keeps me from short-circuiting it.  Most days I spend four to six hours working in the prison's greenhouse, where fresh fruits and vegetables are grown for the inmates and the staff to eat.  Apparently all the prisoners have some kind of job.  Work is considered good rehabilitation.  I was put in the greenhouse because my biography indicated an expertise in plant biology.  It's so nice to know that my original specialization has managed to survive my checkered career.  There usually isn't anyone else in the greenhouse, either, except when the prison cookstaff has someone there harvesting food.  But when I tried to strike up a conversation with one of them, the worker hurried out and a guard came in and told me not to bother the staff or I'd be confined to quarters, so I haven't tried since.  
  
I know there are other Vorta here - lots of them, in fact, since Dr Chaudhary is apparently the quadrant expert on Vorta psychology.  He's hinted that most or all of the Vorta captured during the war have ended up here, and a few things Dr Mwangi has said make me think this is a prison specifically for telepaths: Letheans, Vulcans, Betazoids, and so on.  I suppose it makes sense to put us all in one place - that suppression field can't be cheap to generate.  
  
But I have yet to see another inmate.  It's maddening to know that there are so many of my people in this place - probably including friends of mine - yet to have no interaction with them whatsoever.  Humans are fine, but it's not as if I have much interaction with them, either.  I miss my own kind.  
  
\---  
  
My Federation-mandated counselor seems to think I'm spending too much time describing biology and not enough reflecting on the pivotal events of my life.  When I told him that it was supposed to be my memoir, and reminded him that he wanted me to write what came to mind and that's what I was doing, he encouraged me to focus more on the events themselves and less on the exposition.  In other words, he probably gets bored at lengthy descriptions of the Vorta cloning process and wants something juicier to sink his psychiatric teeth into.  Reading about Gul Dukat watching me shower was apparently not juicy enough.  
  
I have a strong suspicion that the 'buried trauma' he keeps talking about during our sessions is my assimilation by the Borg.  Then again, there's nothing buried about that.  Two of my eight lives have included a period as a Borg drone, the first accidental and the second intentional.  It's not exactly something I can hide.  
  
As Aryl 7, I spent a fair amount of time exploring the furthest reaches of the Gamma Quadrant, because the Changelings wanted me as far away from Dominion space as they could get me.  They were more successful in this than they expected.  My ship encountered a Borg scout ship, and myself and my Jem'Hadar were captured and transformed into cybernetic-organic hybrids without will or agency.  When I was being de-assimilated, the scientists and doctors in charge of the operation speculated that I was able to regain my individuality because the Borg weren't accustomed to assimilating telepaths.  I assume this has changed since then; I was first assimilated some five hundred years ago and the Borg have advanced significantly since then.  
  
Almost as soon as I awoke in my present body, as Aryl 9, the Founder ordered me to return to Borg space and allow myself to be assimilated as before.  The thought of going through that again was so terrible that I forgot to whom I was speaking and simply blurted out, "I won't do it."  
  
"You will do as you are commanded, or you and your line will end here."  That was all she had to say.  I knew what she meant, and I knew, too, that this wasn't an idle threat.  By then no one remembered Aryl the Hero of the Dominion, and my death would have gone unnoticed.  But I didn't understand why the Changelings would want me to return to the Borg collective and have to be rescued again, after how difficult it had been to de-assimilate me in the first place.  Every instinct made me want to protest, but I fought to keep the words back.  I had seen the Founder end Vorta lines before, and that was more immediate and terrifying a threat than the thought of being Borg again.  
  
But when the time finally came, if I could have escaped and run to the opposite side of the galaxy, I would have.  Nothing is more terrifying than the Borg - not even the Founders.


	5. The Battle of Cardassia

Today, at my monthly meeting with the rehabilitation team, a Federation legal liaison joined in via subspace transmission.  At some point during the brief, dull conversation, this liaison - an incredibly fat, dismissive Bolian who was meant to evaluate the progress the team was making with me - referred to me by the title I most hate: the Butcheress of Cardassia.  I corrected him.  He didn't appreciate this, and the meeting only went downhill from there.  
  
I was all set to discuss the Borg today, but after that infuriating meeting, I feel I have a more pressing addition to this memoir.  "Butcheress of Cardassia" is a title surely invented by a Cardassian looking to plant the blame for the ruin of their planet on some Dominion representative.  Our people have no shortage of enemies in the Cardassian Union - but then, neither have the Bajorans, and the Cardassians have blamed them for any number of false crimes as well.  I had no part in the bombing of Cardassia Prime - but after experiencing Cardassian duplicitousness firsthand, I almost wish I had.  It wouldn't have changed anything, since I've been blamed for it anyhow, and then at least I could say I gave as good as I got.  But sadly, no.  When the final battle of the Quadrant War came, I hardly even got to participate.  
  
I do want to make one point clear: I was very good at my job.  I didn't get captured through any fault of my own, except insofar as I trusted the Cardassians.  Otherwise, there were no flaws in my strategy.  Indeed, I had hardly been given the opportunity; the Founder had kept me out of most of the action during the war, probably because she knew how badly I wanted to be in it.    
  
When the Cardassian fleet turned on us, we had no warning.  Headquarters might have signalled the scale of the Cardassian revolt, but all that day my flagship had been having communications trouble - surely due to Cardassian sabotage - so we had heard nothing.  I'd met with the legate of the Cardassian fleet under my command, Kural, just half an hour before, and he had assured me the revolt at the surface would have no effect on him or his men.  I took him at his word.  As I've said before, naivete is a species trait, one I sadly have in abundance.  
  
That same legate's attache, a Gul Atan, stepped off the bridge a short while later to receive a personal transmission, which I thought odd but didn't bother with; Cardassians value their privacy deeply, and I had been doing my level best not to antagonize or provoke them in any way.  A minute later, he returned and immediately started shooting.  His distraction kept us from noticing and responding to the fleet's behaviour, too - a critical factor in the loss of the ship.  That's what I get for being courteous.  It took my Jem'Hadar several seconds to bring Atan down - every one of those seconds crucial.  Because when the guns began blazing, my ship, being the flagship, was the Cardassians' primary target.    
  
We were disabled and dead in the water almost before we knew what was happening.  Gul Atan was dead, yes - but so were both my subsupervisors, my Third and my First, and desperate communications were flooding in from every part of the ship telling the same story: Legate Kural's forces had turned on us.  The ship rocked violently as volley after volley of Cardassian disruptor fire struck us.  "Return fire!" I yelled.  "Get the stabilizers back!  Why aren't we taking evasive action?"  
  
"Engines are down," said the Fourth.  
  
"Weapons are down," said the Second at almost the same time.  
  
"We've just lost our shields," said the Fifth.    
  
It was infuriating.  We didn't fire on a single Cardassian ship.  We didn't get the chance.  We couldn't ram them, we couldn't dodge them, we couldn't do a damned thing.  Our life support systems were failing and our shields were gone, and with the vast majority of the fleet at the edge of Cardassian space battling the Alliance, no one was going to come to our rescue.  We were dead in the water; we'd be dead in earnest if we stayed aboard.  I had no choice but to order all hands to abandon ship.    
  
As soon as the order had gone out, my Second and I ran for the nearest hangar.  We hopped into one of the few small fighters remaining and I gunned the engine.  The battleship exploded a few seconds later.  A swarm of fighters raced ahead of the explosion and dispersed into the midst of the battle, firing in all directions.  You see, we weren't abandoning the flagship for escape pods; rather, we had moved to a fleet of tiny, shuttlecraft-sized fighter craft that populated the warship's sizable interior.  Thus my Jem'Hadar could continue to fight, rather than heroically and stupidly going down with the ship.    
  
On the other hand, these little fighters are only used in extenuating circumstances because they are so vulnerable.  The ion wake from a passing ship can kick one off course, and the fighters aren't themselves warp-capable.  They have minimal shields and most of the energy is shunted to weapons.  They're really meant more as suicide craft than viable spacefaring vehicles.  I consider myself an excellent pilot, but even with me at the helm and my Second, one of the best gunners in the fleet, at the weapons controls, we weren't likely to last long.  It felt to me like we did very well for such an underpowered craft, but who can say how much time elapsed from our evacuating the warship to our ultimate destruction?  Our little vessel wasn't enough to take out a starship, but we did what we could.  A Cardassian Galor-class, being swarmed by little fighters from the ruined flagship, fired blindly into our midst, and that was it for my Second and I.  We didn't take a direct hit - that would have vaporized the fighter - but we took enough to blow out every system aboard.  The panel exploded behind me and so did something inside the bulkhead to my left, sending chunks of metal hurtling across the fighter's interior.  One of these lodged in my side like a harpoon, making me yell.  I heard my Second shriek, too, and smelled burning flesh a moment later, and when I called his name there was no reply.  I knew he was dead.  And so was the ship: the only light was fretful, the glow from sparks as the panel over my Second's head burned itself out.  Eventually that, too, went dark.  
  
A lot happened during that time, most of which I was unaware of, except for the occasional wrenching jolt as other ships' wakes buffeted the fighter from without.  Some loyal Cardassian ships turned on the rebels and helped our own ships to eliminate the traitors.  The rest of the fleet returned to orbit, with the Alliance on their heels.  The Battle of Cardassia took place all around me, but I was not a participant.    
  
I was adrift a long time - just another piece of wreckage orbiting Cardassia, floating in and out of consciousness while the air ran out and the temperature fell and my blood congealed on my clothes.  Second Takan'okan was dead; the smell of his burned corpse hung in the air.  At first the wound in my side hurt badly, but it began to dull as the nanoprobes in my blood worked diligently to repair it, and also as the thinning air blunted my awareness.  
  
Vorta can handle a larger range of oxygen concentrations than most other solids because our blood rapidly adapts its chemistry to ambient conditions (this is what changes the color from red to purple to blue).  Further, a Borg drone can survive for days in an anoxic environment, and for hours in the vacuum of space, without damage.  While I am no longer Borg, my implants and the nanoprobes that still course through my blood mean that I can tolerate much harsher conditions than another of my species.  The nanoprobes were also working to stem my hemhorraging side, and though this couldn't remove the imminent danger of death, it did prolong my chances of survival.  
  
I would definitely have died if no one had found me, though it would have been a long, slow, unspectacular death.  I wasn't aware how much time passed, but I found out after that it was days, maybe more than a week.  Alliance ships sweeping the debris field for survivors prioritized Alliance craft; my fighter must have been scanned many times, but was passed over.  
  
Then, when it was so cold my blood was freezing as it dribbled out and my brain was filming over, I felt the sudden sensation of a transporter.  The bulkhead that had impaled me was left behind, and its removal brought a burst of pain that stirred me from the haze, as well as restarted my bleeding.  My eyes flickered.  The air was warm and sweet with oxygen.  There was reddish light, and angry, startled voices.  
  
"A Vorta!" growled one.  "Beam it back into space!"  
  
Panic raced down my nerves.  My eyes flickered again; I struggled to move.  Other voices were assenting with the first.  They were going to do it!  They were going to beam me into space!  I fought to open my eyes and saw a group of Klingons.  I had to get off the transporter pad.  With extreme effort I dragged myself off the pad and rolled down the steps, moaning involuntarily.  The Klingons turned, cursed, laughed; one of them grabbed me by the collar and dragged me back to the transporter pad and dropped me, shoving me away from the edge with his foot.  
  
As the Klingon walked back to the transporter controls, I forced myself onto hands and knees, then to swaying feet, and stumbled off the pad.  The others surrounded me, some chuckling, others growling, their faces bloodthirsty and mocking.  "Not so tough without your Jem'Hadar, are you?"  "You even face death like a coward." "Hurry up and get this trash off the ship, Kotar."  The taunts cut through my foggy mind and ignited something inside: an anger that grew like a plasma fire.  Wobbly as I was - and surely more than a little delirious - I still found the strength to spit, "Cowards!" at the Klingons.  "Fight me!"  
  
This made most of them laugh harder, but Kotar, the one at the transporter controls, glared.  "You dare challenge me, little rodent?  In space your death would be quick.  You insult my honor, and now I will make your death slow and painful."  He walked towards me and the other Klingons parted, grinning and encouraging him to make good on this promise in various graphic ways.  
  
I appreciate how absurd this image must seem.  But had I been uninjured and armed, I promise I could have taken on all the Klingons in the room and won.  Small does not automatically equal weak.  These Klingons were much stronger than I, but I have taken down foe much larger and stronger than they.  
  
Then again, in this instance I was three steps from dead, so the result of this contest was something of a foregone conclusion.  Nonetheless, I have never been one to walk away from a fight.    
  
Kotar drew a dagger from his belt and tossed it from hand to hand.  I drew up as much psionic energy as I could muster and threw it at him just as he lunged.  We fell at the same time: him because I had knocked him out, I because I had used every last ounce of energy in my body and was immediately too sapped to stand  The other Klingons fell on me, and through an achy, woozy mist I felt them kicking and hitting me, picking me up to strike me more directly, throwing me down.  I am sure they would have killed me but a yell interrupted them, heard as if from a long distance: "Stop!  We're to deliver all prisoners to Deep Space Nine.  The war's over, don't forget that!"    
  
I was dragged or carried to some kind of brig, dumped, and left, and then I was unconscious for a while.  During this time the Klingon ship headed for Terok Nor, where it docked and began to take on supplies.  Here I was woken by a Federation security officer with a look of disgust, who scanned me, frowned at his tricorder, and tapped his combadge.  "Andrews to Sickbay, I've got another one for you."  The voice on the other end told him to wait a minute, and I faded out until the guard and I were transported to the station's sickbay.  I was lifted onto a bed, scanned again, and immediately sent to surgery.  I tried to tell them about my implants, fearing the doctors might try to remove them or otherwise damage me, but they put me under anesthesia without paying much attention.


	6. Dr Julian Bashir

When I woke next I felt clearheaded for the first time since the phaser grazed my fighter.  I was lying on a sickbed and a Human male in Federation uniform was standing over me with a hypospray.  His face was grim.  
  
I tried to sit up.  He didn't stop me.  
  
"Fleet Commander Aryl 9," he said.  
  
"Yes."  I thought a moment.  "Dr Julian Bashir?"  
  
He nodded.  "I see you've read my file.  You're very lucky, by the way.  Whatever pierced your side missed your major organs and most of your cybernetic implants.  You'll be weak til you can replenish your lost blood and nanoprobes, but you'll live."  
  
"Thank you," I said.  
  
The doctor was quiet a moment, studying me with dark, intelligent eyes.  He was waiting to say something, and I wondered what it would be.  Probably an indictment.  Probably he had lost friends to the Dominion and wanted to tell me all the horrible things I'd done and what an evil creature I was and how awful the Dominion was and how unfair it was I should still be alive instead of those friends of his.  I'd heard it before; I was resigned to hear it again.  His emotions were certainly hostile enough - a little curious, too, but perversely so.  
  
When he spoke, however, I realised I had mis-assessed the situation.  With a slight frown, Dr Bashir asked, "How long ago were you assimilated by the Borg?"  
  
"About 200 years," I said, surprised at the question and seeing no reason not to answer.  
  
"And you were rescued?"  His tone was emotionless.  I wondered why he was asking me this.  I debated how to respond, but settled on the truth: "I was ordered to allow myself to be assimilated, and after a year a hypothalamal implant separated me from the Collective so that I could escape on my own."  
  
"Ordered?"  Bashir looked disgusted.  "Your Founders forced you to risk everything for the sake of gathering intelligence."  
  
"Not _my_ Founders," I said sharply before I could stop myself.  I felt his curiosity spike.  
  
"You don't consider them gods?  Are you a defective clone?"  
  
"I can't be defective.  I've never been genetically modified."    
  
He didn't look as if he believed me.  
  
"Is the war really over?" I asked after a pause.  
  
He nodded.  "You lost."  
  
"I gathered that."  I frowned.  "Why did you save me?  The Klingons who pulled me out of the wreckage were ready to beam me into space.  You could have let me die."  
  
"I won't pretend I wasn't tempted," said Bashir.  "But I took an oath when I became a doctor to do no harm.  I have a moral obligation to treat any patient, no matter how much they might deserve otherwise."  His eyes narrowed.  "Millions died on Cardassia - tens of millions.  They're still pulling bodies from the rubble.  You'll have to answer for their deaths."  
  
I had no idea what he was talking about, and I said as much.  Once again, he didn't believe me.  If only I'd understood what the doctor's allusion meant, I wouldn't have been so shocked to hear the charges brought against me.  But I'll never get used to being held accountable for something I had no part in.  It's against my nature.  
  
That day, though, before I could tell Julian Bashir what had really happened - before I could defend myself - the doctor received a call to a different part of the station, and with a final cold look in my direction, he was gone.


	7. How I pass the time; My arrest

There really isn't much to do here.  I have an exercise regimen I follow, I spend a lot of time browsing the Federation library database they've provided us access to, and of course there's this memoir, but that can only occupy so many hours.  I got one of the guards to replicate me a rubber ball, and sometimes I'll just sit on my bed and bounce the ball against the forcefield at the front of my cell.   I've read more books in the past year than in the hundred previous.  I've written letters to my few living acquaintances, but the warden won't send them.  I can't say I blame him, but I still feel it's unfair to keep us isolated from those outside the prison as well as those within it.  What harm is there in my seeking correspondence?  It's not as if I have social contact _here_ \- certainly not enough to be considered sufficient.  
  
This memoir, I'm beginning to realise, is just as much diary as it is autobiography.  Surprisingly, Dr Chaudhary has yet to complain.  Perhaps he sees it as an opportunity to glimpse the inner workings of the mind of a Dominion Butcheress.  Who could pass that up?  He needs to know what makes me tick, after all, if he's going to rehabilitate me into a cooperative, contributing member of non-Dominion society.  
  
Incidentally, my counselor suggested only a few months after I first arrived here that I start listening to music as often as possible, so that's anothing thing I've been using to pass the time.  I imagine his intention is to force me to learn how to appreciate culture by continual exposure to it.  His exact words were that it would "do me good".  I told him that there were such things as Vorta musicians, but he just smiled patronisingly and said something vaguely disparaging about how I might find other options more appealing.  In a rare show of patience, I managed to agree with him, even though his remark touched on one of the topics sure to make me irritable.  That's one thing I'm learning from my stay here: better self-control.  
  
From day one of this prison sentence, I set out to be a model inmate.  The Federation has something we don't, called parole, in which a prisoner who shows exemplary behaviour may have their sentence truncated as a reward.  I don't feel I should be in prison at all, but a century seems an especially heavy punishment when I didn't do anything outside the realm of normal combat practices.  I was supposed to protect Cardassia from the Alliance fleet, and that's exactly what I did.  I don't know how many times I can say I had no part in the bombing of Cardassia's cities, but no matter how often I say it, I feel like I have to say it again.  I know that I just wrote out a full account, but I'm going to reiterate, all the same: when the Cardassian ships turned on us, we had no warning; the flagship was destroyed and my crew, scattered among small fighters, were far too focused on destroying the ships around us to bother with the planet.  Yet here I am.  
  
At any rate, I took Dr Chaudhary's suggestion to heart, having nothing better to do.  Not knowing how to approach the assignment, I told the computer to play music chosen from its database at random.  This has led to some interesting selections, to say the least.  While I have been writing just this one section, I have been subjected to, in order: a Klingon aria, an ancient human dance tune called "The Twist", a chant piece recorded by Bajoran clergy, an Orion harp sonata, and a Breen... something.  Now the computer is playing an advertising jingle for an Andorian restaurant chain.  About three weeks ago I asked it for Yelgrun Prime's Greatest Hits, and the imbecilic thing said that wasn't in the database.  Yet my counselor dares to call the _Vorta_ uncultured?  Please.  
  
(See, Dr Chaudhary?  I believe that qualifies as intentional humor.  Progress!)  
  
\---  
  
I didn't remain in Terok Nor's sickbay for long.  A few hours after Dr Bashir left, a cadre of Starfleet and Bajoran security showed up at my bedside.  I had been dozing - as the doctor had predicted, I was still very weak - but the emotional storm these people brought with them started me awake.  The man at the head of the group, in particular, was nursing a powerful hatred against the Dominion, and I could sense he was hoping for me to resist the security team so he'd have an excuse to hurt me.  I was wary as I sat up to greet them.  
  
"Dominion Fleet Supervisor Aryl 9," the man announced, reading from a PADD, "you are hereby taken into Starfleet custody for crimes committed during the course of war.  You have the right to remain silent when questioned.  You have the right to legal counsel, and an attorney will be provided for you prior to trial.  Do you understand these rights?"  
  
"Do I have the right to know what crimes I'm being charged with?" I asked.  
  
The man's eyes narrowed.  "Your legal counsel will inform you of the charges.  Do you understand your rights?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
He nodded at one of the Bajorans.  The others levelled their phasers at me while the Bajoran dropped the forcefield surrounding my bed.  The officer set aside the PADD, produced a pair of handcuffs, and walked towards me.  "This will be easier if you cooperate," he said gruffly, but I could feel him mentally daring me not to.  
  
"Are those really necessary?" I said.  
  
"For you?  Yes.  Come on, Vorta, don't waste my time."  
  
I sighed but held out my hands.  Despite my compliance, he was much rougher than he needed to be, and as soon as the cuffs were on, he practically dragged me off the bed and out the door.  I was overcome by a wave of dizziness as soon as I stood up, but the security team didn't give me time to adjust, so those first few steps were precarious to say the least.  Still, by the time we reached the promenade, I had regained my equilibrium and was walking upright again.  Which was fortunate, because every person we passed stopped to stare.  The further into the promenade we got, the more people there seemed to be.  They watched us descend the turbolift, pointing and murmuring.  I tried to divine what they were saying, but rather than something distinct I just caught wave upon wave of hate and horror.  I couldn't understand it.  Surely the Vorta couldn't be _that_ despised?  More than the Cardassians?  
  
Suddenly, as if hearing my thoughts, a Cardassian broke from the crowd, charging at me with an incoherent yell.  I jumped aside instinctively, but the security team had intercepted him well before he could reach me.  Their officer elected to interpret my sudden movement as an escape attempt, and he snatched my bloodstained lapel and yanked me towards him, eyes like lit coals.  "Don't test me, Vorta bitch," he hissed.  "My brother was on the Odyssey."  Yes, there it was: the inevitable indictment, the personal vendetta.  What a surprise.  "You slip up just once, I'll break your arms.  Got it?"  
  
I met his gaze and said, levelly, "I wasn't involved in the destruction of the Odyssey, and I would appreciate if you'd let go of my jacket.  Please."  
  
"I'm warning you," the man growled, but he released his grip.  The Cardassian was still shouting at me, straining against the security team.  I tried to make out what he was saying through his drunken slur.  Something about avenging his family.  I wondered just how many of these accusations I would have to listen to before I was deported to the Gamma Quadrant.  Hopefully not many more.  


	8. Cargo Bay 7

I assumed I was being relocated to the station's main security office.  But Terok Nor's detention cells, it turned out, were already full, jam-packed with Dominion captives segregated by species.  Several cargo bays had been converted into a makeshift brig to accommodate the overflow, and one of these would be our ultimate destination; my guard had only brought me to the main office to complete some necessary paperwork.  A balding Bajoran with a sour expression - the security chief on duty - droned questions at me and entered the responses into his computer.  I found it difficult to focus, since at the same time I was scanning the Vorta holding cell, both mentally and visually, for anyone I knew.  The security chief had to keep snapping his fingers in my face to get me to answer his questions.  He was growing more cross by the second.  
  
The voice of a friend cut into my thoughts: _Aryl, you're in trouble.  They're saying you bombed Cardassia Prime, killed 500 million civilians or something.  Is it true?_  
  
That couldn't be right.  These people thought I'd killed 500 million civilians?  No wonder I'd been getting such venomous looks.  _No, Koris, it's not true.  How did y-_  
  
"If you're not going to answer the question, say so," the security chief grumbled.  "Don't just ignore me."  
  
"My apologies," I said hastily.  "What's the question?"  
  
"Planet of birth?"  
  
"Kurill Beta.  ...Can't I just fill it out myself?" I asked as I watched the chief deliberately type my answer into the form.  
  
"Just answer the questions.  Do you have any allergies?"  Over him, in my head, Koris was saying, _My ship was disabled over Betazed.  Field supervisors aren't important enough to be put on trial, but Aryl, I've heard that they're trying to get an exception to Federation law so they can have you executed.  Be careful!_  
  
_It's just a rumor_ , I shot back, but I felt unsettled.  So that's what Dr Bashir had meant.  Koris had to be exaggerating, I told myself.  There was no way anyone could think I had committed mass murder.  Still, as the security chief produced question after pointless question, my mind was racing.  Surely no one could believe that I was responsible for the deaths of so many.  How could I have killed 500 million Cardassians, civilian or not?  When I'd met with Legate Kural before his fleet turned on us, Cardassia and its people were fine.  What had happened while I was in that crippled fighter?  What was I being blamed for?  And how could I prove my innocence?  
  
_Tarmen and Tehany are here, too_ , said Koris.  _Did anyone else from your ship make it out alive?_  
  
_Not that I know of.  The Cardies shot Kiyana and Barron before we could even react.  It wasn't just the fleet that turned on us, it was the soldiers aboard the flagship, too._  
  
_No surprise there.  Look, I'll tell anyone else I see that you're alive.  May the Founders smile on you when your trial happens._   She laughed mentally, an effect hard to describe to a non-telepath; but the sentiment had a dark undertone.  _Too bad the Founder's on trial, too._  
  
This came as a surprise.  I could imagine the Founder suing for peace if she felt it would best suit her own gain, but in what universe did she stand to gain by allowing herself to be tried by the Federation for war crimes?  I'd figured we lost because she'd finally succumbed to that disease and died, and Weyoun had been so bereft he'd surrendered all our forces in the Alpha Quadrant on the spot rather than try to carry on without her.  He wasn't here; I guessed I'd find him in the cargo-bay brig if at all.  Had the Cardassians murdered him as soon as the Founder conceded defeat?  I wouldn't put it past them to make his death one of the terms of surrender, especially if Damar were leading the task force.  Not that Damar's piddling little rebellion had likely gotten anywhere, but he might easily have swooped in to claim command once the Cardassians turned traitor...  
  
"And that's it," announced the security chief, snapping me from my thoughts.  "Take her to Cargo Bay 7, section 3.  Should be a free space available."  
  
I bid Koris a hasty unspoken goodbye and good luck, and the guard gripped my arm and pulled me out of the office and down the promenade.  Once again, people stared and pointed, but while some bystanders dropped words like 'murderer' and 'soulless clone' - some rather loudly - no one attacked us this time.    
  
When we arrived at Cargo Bay 7, I was surprised to find it just as crowded as the main office - and also funereally quiet.  The entire forward half of the room was open, with two pens for Jem'Hadar defined by forcefields.  They seemed oddly listless; their eyes followed us hollowly as we passed.  Some things I overheard later lead me to conclude they were being drugged, that the whole pen was pumped full of sedative gas to keep them from fighting the guards or each other or trying to escape.  I'm sure someone in charge felt it was necessary, but the sight still unnerved me.  My assigned section was near the back corner, where the cargo bay had been separated into cubbyholes about fifteen foot square using stacked crates.  The officer whose brother had been on the Odyssey found an empty cubby and shoved me inside, and an emitter on the ceiling activated a forcefield that intersected the cargo containers, forming a box inside of which I was now confined.  I held up the handcuffs.  "I don't need these anymore.  Would you take them off, please?"  
  
The officer just stood outside the cell and scowled at me.  I asked again, but he turned and left, and no one came back to my corner of the cargo hold for the rest of the day.  
  



	9. Federation hypocrisy; Another visit to Dr Bashir

The Federation claims to be the safehold of justice and the bastion of egalitarianism, created purely for exploration and bent on spreading peace and prosperity for all who wish it, etc.  Yet having been a prisoner of same for several years now, I believe my perspective puts the lie to such claims.  My time in Terok Nor's cargo bay illustrates precisely what I mean.  
  
I had been told that I would be given legal counsel, but I was in that forcefield-walled cubicle for more than a week before my lawyer even showed up.  I was told that I did not have to answer any questions I didn't wish to, but when the responses I'd given for my permanent file flagged as false, I was taken to a private room to be yelled at by the Bajoran who'd entered them, demanding I tell him the truth or there would be serious repercussions.  I told him that I had answered everything accurately, and that he was basing his assumption that I was lying on erroneous data.  The security chief refused to accept this.  He railed at me for several hours, then put a note in the file that I was uncooperative and untruthful, and should be handled with prejudice.  The Federation decries mistreatment of prisoners, but my "cell" was hardly large enough to lie down in, and I had nothing to do whilst there besides stand around, since there wasn't enough room to even pace.  The drugged Jem'Hadar would rather have died than be subjected to such a disgrace - not only imprisoned but sedated as well?  Would the Federation treat a Klingon captive that way?  And though the stacked crates blocked my view, I heard the guards physically assaulting other prisoners on many occasions.  No one stopped them.   No one reported them.  It's true that the Dominion doesn't much care what happens inside our own prisons, but then, the Federation is supposedly better than that.  At least, that's what they claim.  
  
A few days after being put in the cargo bay and a day or two before I met my lawyer, I was dozing and woke to the sound of the forcefield being taken down.  I knew what was happening before I opened my eyes: it was Officer Odyssey and some pals, come to get a little revenge, like they'd been doing to others all week long.  But I was not going to be another target.  Unlike many of my colleagues, I wasn't defenseless.  I'd also had time to recover from my injuries.  And I fought back.  
  
I feel I ought to explain something here.  While all Vorta are at least a little telepathic, few today have abilities as advanced as our species once possessed.  The Federation knew we had psionic powers from their first encounter with our species, because the Vorta operative tasked with facilitating contact, Eris, hasn't had that part of her genetic code edited out.  I've heard speculations that she faked it, or that Eris is somehow unique; but in fact the ability to summon a burst of energy is a natural one, which all Vorta had when I was born.  It's an innate defense we evolved on a planet with many large predators, something that comes in handy when you don't have a weapon and encounter a danger like, for instance, three vengeful Starfleet officers with chips on their shoulders the size of shuttlecraft.  When the Changelings took over the Dominion, however, they deemed it too risky to allow us to maintain both our autonomy and the ability to defend ourselves, so they removed telekinesis from nearly all males and about half of all females.  Obviously I was unaffected by this.  Furthermore, my long life has given me centuries of practice to improve my mastery of psionic attacks.  Those among my current colleagues who have witnessed these abilities expressed marvel at the power I can summon and the speed with which I can do it - but the irony is, I was rather subpar to begin with and would only be slightly better than average if taken today against my unmodified contemporaries.  My apparent skill is only due to a lack of comparators.  I had an acquaintance, Sarna, who could knock out fifty Burrowers with one shot.  That's skill.  I can't do that.  
  
But I can knock out three Humans long enough to keep from getting pummelled because someone's brother had the misfortune of being incinerated in a Jem'Hadar suicide attack.  I was a little closer to the energy blast than I wanted to be, but I still got to my feet well before they did.  They had no weapons on them.  I considered running, but where would I have gone?  There were other guards by the cargo bay's door, and beyond that was an entire space station crawling with Starfleet, Klingons, Romulans, and a dozen other hostile species who wouldn't think twice about taking out the Butcheress of Cardassia in supposed self-defense.  Even without the handcuffs I still wore, I doubted I'd be able to steal a ship, much less make it to the wormhole alive.    
  
So instead I stood at the back of my cubby and waited for the guards to recover, all the while planning how I could evade or disable them.  
  
Officer Odyssey struggled to stand, shaking his head roughly.  "You'll pay for that," he growled.  The other two men groaned and used the cargo crates to push themselves up.  One of them started to rush me, but the officer stopped him.  
  
"Isn't this kind of thing against Starfleet policy?" I said dryly.  
  
The officer's lip curled.  He tapped his comm badge.  "Chen to Janikowski.  We have an escape attempt in Cargo Bay 7.  Bring your phaser."    
  
A few seconds later another Human appeared in the aisle, breathless, clutching a hand phaser.  "What happened?"  
  
"Nothing, we've got it under control."  Chen took the newcomer's phaser, adjusted its setting, and aimed.  Janikowski started to ask what he was doing.  Officer Chen fired.    
  
I was just summoning another burst of energy, but the phaser interrupted that.  Chen had set it to one of the lower stun strengths, so that I was toppled but not rendered unconscious.  While paralysed on the ground I heard the Humans approaching but couldn't see because of how I had fallen.  Janikowski seemed to be protesting their actions, to Starfleet's credit: "Sir!  She's unarmed!  Why did you do that?"  
  
"You saw, Bart.  She was gonna blast us again."  This was not Chen but one of his accomplices.  
  
"You could have just raised the forcefield," Janikowski said.  
  
"You're no longer needed here, Crewman."  That was Chen.  "Return to your post."  
  
"Sir, I'm going to have to report this."  
  
"No, you're not.  This is sanctioned by Admiral Ross himself.  Step aside, Crewman."  
  
I was recovering at last.  As I rose, I could see that Janikowski had placed himself between Chen's men and myself.  This made me smile, I suppose because it was just so Starfleet of him - the way Starfleet claims to be, not what I'd been experiencing that whole week.  The place where Chen had shot me hurt like a bad bruise, but otherwise the phaser's effects had dissipated.  
  
"Ensign Chen," I said, "perhaps it would be best for everyone if you just raised the forcefield and walked away."  
  
His eyes narrowed and a wave of hate and ill intentions spilled off of him like rippling acid.  "Perhaps it would be best for you, Vorta," he parroted, "if you shut the hell up."  
  
And my counselor wonders why I find Humans distasteful.  
  
Instead of arguing further, I took a slow breath and drew up a coherent sphere of psionic energy, then held it in place in midair, by way of showing that I could knock them all out right then if I wished.  Janikowski must have heard this, but he stood his ground without glancing behind.  Chen fidgeted with the phaser, torn between Starfleet training and personal feelings.  I sensed his intention too late; he fired past Janikowski and struck me about shoulder-height.  The energy sputtered and I fell; he shot me twice more after I was already on the ground.  Janikowski was yelling and Chen's sidekicks were yelling back.  Chen must have increased the setting on the phaser, because he fired on me once more, but this time it brought an abrupt end to the episode.  
  
I woke up in sickbay.  
  
"I didn't expect to see you again, Fleet Commander," said a vaguely-familiar voice.  I looked to see who it was and gasped in sudden pain.  Doctor Bashir, his back to me, turned.  "I wouldn't recommend moving yet, unless you want to aggravate your injuries.  Why would you try to escape?  Even if you were able to get through the wormhole, the Treaty would require the Dominion to extradite you back."  
  
"I didn't try to escape.  Is that what Ensign Chen told you?"  
  
Bashir frowned.  "According to the incident report, you managed to disable the forcefield around your cell and climbed to the top of the cargo container stack.  Ensign Chen was forced to stun you, but you fell and dislocated your shoulder, put your carpal implant and a vertebral segment out of alignment, damaged two ribs and bruised a few organs.  It seems to have been a very bad fall."  
  
I snorted at the version of events my attackers expected to pass off as truth.  "Ensign Chen and two others attacked me, Doctor.  I never left my cell.  Haven't you been getting a suspicious number of Dominion prisoners in here following 'escape attempts'?  The security officers have been beating up prisoners all week."  
  
The doctor's frown deepened.  "Not at all; you're the first.  ...You say the guards have been abusing prisoners?  That's a serious allegation."  
  
"Surely you can see from your scans that he shot me five times."  
  
"Ensign Chen claimed the first four shots were on too low a stun setting to be effective."  Julian Bashir paused, debating with himself; I sensed the medical evidence battling his reluctance to believe a Vorta Butcheress could be more trustworthy than an Academy-trained Starfleet officer.  But, true to his file, the doctor could not ignore his own observations.  Rather grudgingly, he admitted, "However, your injuries are more extensive than I would expect based on the incident report.  A fall would most likely not have enough concentrated force to dent those duranium-plated Borg ribs.  The damage is more consistent with focused blunt trauma - an impact with someone's foot, not a floor.  In fact, I repaired almost the exact same injury when you were first brought here.  Perhaps the Klingons weakened the metal."  
  
I didn't remember being kicked.  I assumed Chen and colleagues must have delivered a few blows for good measure after I was unconscious.  
  
"Why would a Starfleet officer have attacked you?" Bashir asked after a long moment.  "I can't see Ensign Chen wanting to avenge the bombing of Cardassia.  He couldn't care less about the Cardassians."  
  
"Ensign Chen made a point of telling me his brother was killed by the Dominion," I said.  "Doctor, despite what you may have heard, I didn't order the bombing of Cardassia.  I didn't have any part in it."  
  
Bashir didn't say anything.  He ran several tricorder scans, wrote something on a PADD, gave me an injection - I didn't ask of what - and headed for the door.  There he paused and said, "I'll let Colonel Kira know what happened.  If Ensign Chen really is abusing prisoners, he'll be reprimanded and posted elsewhere."  He left.  Ten minutes later a trio of Bajoran security arrived to take me back to the cargo bay.  This time, at least, they didn't use handcuffs.  
  
Whether they were reprimanded or not, Ensign Chen and his accomplices must have been reassigned, because I didn't see them again.  Maybe they represent the worst of Starfleet; maybe they were aberrations; maybe - probably - Chen was lying when he said Admiral Ross condoned his behavior; maybe they were careful about when and how they conducted their abuses and their colleagues truly didn't know what they were doing.  Maybe not.  I haven't encountered anything similar _here_ , in an actual prison, so it's hard to say.  When I finally met with my lawyer and told him what had happened, he didn't seem to think it anything important. 

Then again, he isn't a very good lawyer.  


	10. A typical session with Dr Chaudhary

My mandated counselor came to our session today armed with the latest pertinent publication from one of the myriad Starfleet medical journals he subscribes to.  I knew he was itching to try the paper's theories on me - not telepathically, obviously, but based on past experience.  Dr M. K. R. Chaudhary keeps very close track of the scientfic literature on the Vorta species and rehabilitative psychology in general.  Every time he reads something he likes, he brings it to therapy and tries it out on me.  Case in point:  
  
 _After reading "Self-determination in the wake of the Founders' downfall":_ "Aryl, how does the Female Founder's being in a maximum-security prison make you feel?"  I told him I wished they'd killed her.  He brushed right past my comment and pushed, "Do you feel unsettled or destabilized by the thought of a god in jail?"  But she's not a god.  "A supreme monarch, then.  Does her fall from power give you a newfound sense of freedom?"  Well, I'm in prison, so no, I don't feel any particular sense of freedom.  ...He didn't like that much.  
  
 _After reading "The sounds of the forest: Primal genetic memory among the Vorta":_ "Do you ever dream about being in a forest or jungle?  How does that make you feel?"  Well, I've been to plenty of forests and jungles over the course of my life, and I was a plant biologist for 700 years or so, so yes, I've had dreams featuring thick vegetation.  "Yes, but was there a sense of belonging?  Did you feel as if you were reclaiming your heritage?  Did the trees feel like home?"  No, why would they?  ...He didn't like that much, either.  
  
This time, the paper was about the tragedy of how the Changelings had genetically-modified away the Vorta's ability to have sex like a normal humanoid species should.  The doctor thought this was brilliant, and having read most of my memoir and seen my medical files, he knows that I am uninterested in and incapable of sex and yet "she claims to be the product of a pair-bonded sexual union" (his words), which he finds a baffling contradiction.  No sooner had I sat down than he pounced.  
  
"Have you ever been in a pair-bonded relationship, Aryl?"  No, I've never bonded with anyone.  "I don't mean the sort of telepathic bonding you described in your memoir.  I mean a romantic or sexual relationship."  It's all one and the same for a Vorta.  "Yes, but haven't you ever been physically attracted to someone?"  No, because that would require a sense of aesthetics, wouldn't it, Doctor?  
  
By now he was clearly getting frustrated, so he changed tactics.  "Did you feel threatened when Gul Dukat accosted you while you were bathing?"  I told him I was irritated but not much else.  "But weren't you worried he might attempt to force himself on you?"  
  
"How?" I asked.  "It's anatomically impossible."  
  
"But he might have molested you.  Didn't he have a history of sexually abusing Bajoran women?  You could easily have been his next victim."  
  
I failed to see the connection, but confirmed that this was true: Dukat had expressed his evil and megalomania in as many permutations as he could invent.  But for someone of my anatomy, there's little to molest.  He certainly couldn't impregnate me, if that was what Dr Chaudhary was getting at.  "I suppose he could have attempted to hurt me, but I would have been able to defend myself.  And there would have been serious repercussions."  
  
"I mean he could have done you sexual violence," said the counselor, his vexation now audible.  
  
"But he couldn't have.  I don't possess the requisite organs, Doctor."  
  
He leaned forward, probably seeing an opening here to finally segue into the paper.  "But the Founders did that to you, Aryl.  They neutered your species.  Surely you still have vestigial fears and desires."  
  
And this exchange perfectly encompasses why I get along so poorly with my counselor.  He still insists my memoir is fiction, delusion, or both.  His comment ignored everything I had told him: that I am not genetically-modified, that I was born before the Changelings came to power, that I was the product of a very different reproductive method than Humans utilize.  I wish now that I had just written it all out explicitly, blow-by-blow so to speak - but I'm certain Dr Chaudhary would have discounted it outright, no matter how clinical or detailed the description.  Still, I was so annoyed and offended by his remarks that I elected to explain the process, then and there.    
  
"At no point in our evolutionary history have the Vorta engaged in the type of coupling typical of most humanoid solids," I said, or rather snapped.  "Gene transfer is external.  There are no genitalia.  There is no desire or arousal; rape, seduction, and other abuses are impossible.  There is no insemination.  There are no gametes.  We do not gestate inside a parent's body, so there is no pregnancy; nor do we emerge from eggs, like Cardassians or Jem'Hadar or the extinct Selquedi.  We develop inside a cocoon of hyphae-like secretions produced by the parents once they enter the reproductive trance."  
  
That was as far as I got before Dr Chaudhary cut me off.  In fact, I'm surprised he let me say so much: for someone who claims to be an expert exopsychologist, he is shockingly resistant to anything too alien for him to personally relate to.  External gene transfer?  Humanoids secreting hyphae?  A baby forming inside a cocoon, outside the bodies of its parents?  I don't need telepathy to sense how dubiously he regards these concepts.  
  
"The Federation Exobiology Commission has determined the Vorta are mammals, just like Humans, Klingons, Bajorans, and nearly all humanoid species," my counselor interrupted, in the same sort of patronizing tone a teenager would use in correcting a too-imaginative child.  "That means that, regardless of what body systems are missing now as a result of genetic manipulation, your species once reproduced naturally, through sex - probably during the time when your people were primitive arboreal primates or proto-humanoids, before the Founders made you into your current form.  I know that it's difficult to believe, but the scientific evidence shows-"  
  
"The scientific evidence show you what you want to see," I practically snarled.  I was too angry to stay silent.  "Maybe if you ever listened to me instead of automatically discounting what I have to say-"  
  
"And what should I be looking for, then?" Dr Chaudhary replied, still using the same modulated condescension.  "Do you have any proof for what you're claiming?"  
  
"If the Borg didn't take them out, yes.  The hyphae are produced from glands in the arms and hands.  Check Dr Mwangi's medical scans, I'm sure you'll see-"  
  
"I've seen your medical scans, Aryl.  The only thing abnormal about your limbs is the Borg implants.  Otherwise you're a typical mammalian humanoid."  He smiled, probably intending to look personable but coming across as paternalistic and smug.  "Now your digestive system, that's something different.  But there aren't any reproductive glands in your arms."  
  
"They're not-" I started, then shook my head and stopped.  There was no point in arguing; he'd obviously made up his mind long before I even came to the prison.  Why was I still trying to get through to him?  Why do I keep expecting that if I tell my Human captors the truth about things, they'll eventually listen?  Maybe that's the primary reason I keep working on this memoir: there's no one to interrupt and tell me I'm imagining things or just inventing lies.  Then again, I doubt the PADD is going to transmit its findings to Starfleet Medical and change the going theories on native Vorta physiology.  
  
"They're not what?" Dr Chaudhary prompted.  
  
"This is a waste of time."  
  
"I know that it's difficult to accept, Aryl, but-"  
  
"No," I said, "it's not.  But you're not here to help me or even to learn about other species.  You're here to fit your subjects into a preexisting theoretical framework, built from Federation literature and Federation guesswork, and to take those so-called results and publish them in the same xenophobic literature, reinforcing the same myths and preconceptions, the same prejudices and lies, ad infinitum.  I think I'm ready to go back to my cell now."  
  
He seemed fairly miffed with me - but happily, prisoners do have some rights in the Federation, and he isn't allowed to keep me in therapy if I say I'm done.  So he had to call the guard and let me leave, and I won't see him again til our next bi-weekly session in four days. 


	11. My education; My reputation; The cracks begin to show

When I turned fifteen - the age of majority for a Vorta whose development isn't artificially accelerated, a situation unheard of in the modern era - I applied for a position with the Deep-Space Exploration Commission, and in just a few months I had been placed on a vessel bound for a star system 200 light years from home.    
  
My education had been quite uneventful.  At that time, it was typical for a child to be educated by their parents for their first 2-5 years, depending on how quickly his or her verbal abilities crystallized.  Then we went to our version of school, where we learned general knowledge in small groups that spent as much time outside as in a classroom.  As I understand it, this is not like a Federation school; our small population and fast development meant that children could be given much closer and more-personalized attention than on a world where there are tens of billions of inhabitants.  We still lived with our parents, of course, but it was a time of increasing independence and discovery.  Finally, at age 10 or so, we entered apprenticeships - not job training but applied learning. where we shadowed adults while they worked.  Apprenticeship allowed us to gain specialized education and to try out various careers to see what we excelled at or enjoyed.  I apprenticed at the regional botanical garden, the Exploration Supervisory Bureau, and the museum where I first dreamed of visiting other worlds.  I also tried the laboratory where my parents worked, but after only a few days it became emberrassingly obvious that engineering was not my forte.  This was considered part of the process, however.  In those days, children weren't bred for specific occupations, so it was common - extremely common - for young people to try a large number of apprenticeships before finding something that fit their abilities and interests.  
  
I don't know if anything has changed since the War, but assuming it hasn't, the current practice is very different.  Each Vorta is designed by a geneticist in a cloning facility to pursue some specific field: medicine, command, diplomacy, weapons research, clothing design, whatever the Dominion needs at that moment.  After a two-week gestation, the new individual is "born" and started on growth stimulants to speed them on the way to adulthood.  Children are reared in nurseries at the same cloning facilities where they were produced, then sent to training centers specific to their destined occupation, and finally released into the workforce in their destined role.  The process has become more and more compressed as the facility managers have perfected it.  Once, it took ten years for a new line to be deployed; today, it can be done in as little as three months.    
  
This current way of doing things has been normalised for so long that whenever I've mentioned my own childhood to my colleagues - certainly during the last two centuries - they have reacted with shock and incredulity.  "You were allowed to age naturally?", as if a crime had been committed against me.  My subsupervisor during the Quadrant War, Kiyana, simply didn't believe me when I told her I had parents, and when I added that I had been the product of a pair-bonded coupling rather than grown in a lab, she informed me that was impossible and I must be delusional.  "We have _never_ reproduced outside of a laboratory - not since the Founders elevated us.  We are above so-called 'natural' reproduction."  She shuddered and gave me a look partway between pity and a grimace.  "Natural reproduction leads to random elements, which lead to errors.  It's far too risky.  The Founders would never allow it."  
  
I shrugged.  "It worked just fine before-" I started, then stopped - that was nothing I could explain to an unquestioning zealot like Kiyana.  Instead, I said, "I enjoy having random elements in my personality."  
  
She stared at me as if I were insane.  "Fleet Supervisor, forgive my impertinence, but now I understand why you have such a reputation for eccentricity.  _Wanting_ randomness in oneself?"  She shivered again, apparenly speechless with horror.  "If I didn't have the comfort of knowing that the Founders had created me to be a field supervisor-  If I didn't know that I was engineered _specifically_ for this-"  Once more, words failed her.  
  
In fact, I do have a bit of a bad reputation among my own kind.  I'm rather proud of it, to be honest.  When I first boarded a starship, young and naive and boundlessly curious, I was a perfectly average example of my species.  In the intervening years, so many traits and 'random elements' have been trimmed from our genetics that I have become something of a unicorn, to use an Earth colloquialism.  To other Vorta, I am peculiar at best, contemptible at worst.  They see me as blasphemous, intimidating, headstrong, possibly mentally unhinged.  They find my strangeness to be fascinating, dangerous, and deplorable at once.  Weyoun's attitude was a good illustration.  He liked to make little jabs about my being different or defective, but he also loved to make conversation about those same defects.  The Changelings could modify us all they wanted, but one thing they never succeeded at excising is that insatiable Vorta curiosity.  
  
\---  
  
Despite the fact that the Dominion was already neck-deep in a war with the Burrowers a decade before I was born, I managed to avoid seeing any combat until the unfortunate occasion of my first demise.  I had blundered into a Burrower encampment and been shot, the reader may recall.  It was hardly an auspicious start to my career.  I wasn't even twenty and had already lost my first clone.  It's true that new batches of clones can be made for a given individual, so long as their genetic code is stored at the cloning facility; but signal degradation becomes a larger problem with each batch, and viable clones are harder to make with each iteration.  Many lines don't make it to a second batch.  After the incident with the Burrowers I was significantly more cautious.    
  
As my life was once more set in motion, I wondered occasionally if I might be transferred to a military vessel, but it never happened; in those days the Dominion could afford to keep science and exploration a priority even in the midst of a war.  We were so powerful then, under the wise direction of the Arthans, that even a serious conflict with a race as bloodthirsty and destructive as the Burrowers did not necessitate our diverting all resources to the war effort.  Of course, the worst of the war was over by then, too, and I only encountered the Burrowers twice more before they were finally defeated and the war was done.  Surveying plants on unexplored worlds doesn't lend itself to martial conflict, apparently.  
  
My second life was much more successful than my first.  I described thousands of new species and at least six novel modes of photosynthesis.  I corresponded with my parents often and visited them whenever I was in the Kurill system.  I worked closely with a prestigious Arthan biochemist named Thani Aghittachrya Aghila Sothanichra on a number of publications, a rare honor for a second clone.  My career was progressing delightfully, and I wholeheartedly believed that the rest of my life would continue in a similar vein.  I envisioned a stint lecturing at the Arkanthor Exoecological Academy, and perhaps a further apprenticeship with Thani or even one of her more-famous colleagues, perhaps Kurna Kurebhayana Chrytytakka Rasanisnaya, the originator of the exobotanical phylogenetic framework that made the work I did possible in the first place.  I had been busily building connections in the scientific community in pursuit of just such a collaboration, and Thani had hinted at its possibility.  And anyhow, I loved the work.  At the time, I couldn't imagine anything interfering with my scientific ambitions, and I certainly didn't expect interference of the sort that I got.    
  
Arthan names, by the way, were all as long as those given above and sometimes longer.  Coming from a race whose names were all one word and rarely topped three syllable, I found it annoyingly difficult to pronounce the Arthans' names.  I count myself fortunate that Thani preferred to have the rest of her names left off.  I had a colleague who worked with Kurna who told me Kurna insisted on always being called by his full name, to the point that my colleague stopped using his name altogether.  (The Selquedi had two names, like the Bajorans, but I hardly met any of them; they preferred the life of a warrior to that of a researcher, and they went extinct only a few decades after the end of the war.)  
  
The first hint that my Pollyanna vision for my future was not to be came when I was Aryl 2 and about fifty.  I returned from a half-year planetary survey, and, as customary, went home to Kurill Beta, to Ramasa Province, to the city of Komi, to stay with my parents while the Exploration Supervisory Bureau decided where to send me next.  I stepped off the intramunicipal train and discovered that my apartment was gone.  Vanished.  The entire block.  My childhood home had been on the northeast corner of the seventh floor.  But the entire building and every building adjacent had disappeared.  
  
I know that psychiatrists like to make a fuss about their patients' parents.  Dr Chaudhary has asked often enough about mine.  I have nothing negative to say about them whatsoever.  I loved them dearly and if I had known, looking at the razed city block where I was raised, that they were gone, I probably would have taken it badly.  I was certainly shocked, and I felt a drop of worry; but only a drop, and a tiny drop at that.  No one had contacted me while I was aboard ship, and both my parents had multiple remaining clones banked.  I assumed that they had been salvaged and downloaded into their next bodies, just as I'd been transferred after the Burrower patrol put a lazer blast through my heart.  
  
I learned, soon afterward, that they had not.  
  
I went to the nearest government office to ask what had happened.  It seemed that, while I was gone, there had been a rash of bombings on the homeworld, primarily targeting housing blocks and cloning facilities.  Those last two words put a chill through my core.  To blow up a housing block was one thing - a lot of people would be killed, and because a bomb has the potential to destroy brain tissue in a variety of ways, a lot of those people would be unrecoverable: permanently dead.  But to blow up a cloning facility wasn't just killing the people in the facility.  It also meant the loss of all the genetic data stored there, all the banked clones, all the infants in development, and any neural patterns awaiting a viable clone.  Blowing up a cloning facility meant killing off entire lines; it meant the deaths of thousands of people not even present at the facility at the time of the bombing, people whose futures were erased and didn't even know it.  No Vorta, no matter how defective or deranged, would ever, _ever_ commit so heinous a crime.  It would be equivalent to mass murder.  
  
I learned that three facilities had been destroyed so far, two on Beta and one on Prime.  The Ramasa facility, where my own spares were banked, was not one of the bombing sites.  The Dikella facility, where my mother's clones were banked, was.  The Tragana facility, where my father's clones were banked, was the other one.  And when I went to the Ramasa branch office of the Records Supervisory, I learned that my parents had been home when the apartment bomb went off.  Both of them were killed and both suffered such extensive head trauma their selves could not be recovered.  Which meant the unthinkable:  My parents were dead.  And no one had bothered to let me know.


	12. My second death

The Vorta attitude towards death is drastically different from that of a non-cloned species because for us death is so rarely permanent.  This has led to myriad misunderstandings and the idea that we are heartless, callous, incapable of grief.  In fact, when a death is irreversible, our grief is probably greater than that of another race, because our lives are potentially so much longer than those of other races.  
  
My first reaction to the news about my parents, therefore, was naturally one of total disbelief.  I was certain there had been a mistake.  I went to the Mortuary Supervisory and found the records of my parents' dissolution, but, dissatified, I checked the coroners' reports to find where it stated, unequivocally, that recovery was impossible.  They had tried - that was standard practice if cranial remains existed at all - and had been unable to download anything.  But that had to be a mistake, as well - I was sure of it.  So I went to Dikella and Tragana Provinces to see the destroyed cloning facilities myself, to pore over the dissolution records for the destroyed clones until I found both my parents' names, to hear from those who had tried to salvage anything after the bombings and to be told that the computer systems at both facilities had been at the heart of the explosions, with not one byte of data recoverable.  Even then, after months wasted chasing down a fantasy, I still felt as if the bodies pulled from the wreckage of our apartment had been misidentified - despite the fact all bodies are identified by genetics whether they can be identified visually or not.  Misidentifications could only occur if a person's genetic sequence had been mislabelled in both the government records and at the cloning facility where it was stored.  I knew that my parents were dead, I knew that I was insane to keep trying to figure out some way they might not be.  But the pain of losing them was so great that I preferred absurd delusions to acceptance of the truth.  It took years for me to come to terms with their being permanently gone.  
  
In retrospect, though, I'm grateful that my parents' backups were destroyed along with their selves.  It's one thing to lose someone altogether.  It's quite another to lose the person you knew, but to still interact with someone that shares your dead friend's memories, looks like your friend, and often shares many traits with your friend, but is not your friend.  The new version feels like a counterfeit of the original.  You start to resent them because of it, whether the person deserves it or not.  
  
Though I'm digressing, I will give an example.  
  
For almost a century, I worked frequently at the Exploration Supervisory with a man named Sen.  He was an exomycologist, and we were sent on a good many planetary surveys together, during which time he and I struck up a friendship.  He had an acid sense of humor that I loved, and his habit of extolling the virtues of fungi over plants or animals, in absolute earnest and at every opportunity, became a running joke, as if we were in competition to prove which were the better organisms, fungi or plants.  He kept a collection of unique mushrooms in his quarters and was fond of hiking and being outdoors.  If he had an opinion on something, he would share it without hesitation and debate you until you conceded, converted, or walked away.  He also happened to be with me when I died for the second time.    
  
We were surveying a planetoid called 2 Vartan Delta A (largest moon of the fourth planet of the smaller star in a binary pair).  I was perched atop a mossy boulder, documenting the growth habit of a fern that was attached to the underside of an overhanging tree branch.  At the base of the same tree, Sen was carefully digging out a neon-orange mushroom the size of his arm.  I had reached up to pull the fern free from the branch when I felt an intensely painful sting.  I yelped and dropped the fern.  
  
Perhaps epiphytes are bad luck for me.    
  
"What's wrong?"  Sen looked up.  I looked at my hand and saw a bright purple droplet of blood on my fingertip.  As I watched, the pinprick widened to a sore.  The tip of my finger went white, then grey, then purplish-black - the finger was dissolving before my eyes, the flesh liquefying on the bone.  I shrieked and fell off the boulder; Sen ran over, and by the time he reached me most of my hand had turned black and was melting away.    
  
Quickly, he took off his belt and yanked it brutally tight around my arm above the elbow.  We waited breathlessly only to see this did nothing to stop the infection or venom or whatever it was from spreading.  Without delay, Sen produced an NTD from his knapsack and pressed it to my temple.  I lost consciousness, either due to my being uploaded into the Neural Transfer Device or due to the progress the flesh-melting disease.  Either way, when I woke, it was at the Ramasa Clone Storage Facility, screaming and hyperventilating once again.  Sen's decisive action had saved me; within two minutes of the bite, my whole body had been reduced to nothing but a puddle of bones and black ooze.  The survey team were recalled immediately so that the risk could be studied and assessed; weapons developers were at that moment on 2 Vartan Delta A in their place, trying to catch whatever had bit me so that they could adapt it into something deployable against the Burrowers or another enemy.  
  
Sen and I were assigned to more missions together after that, and I was glad; I felt safer to have him with me, until the lingering shock of my recent death had faded.  We joked about the danger, which also helped.  He was a good friend.  When the Exploration Supervisory sent him to be senior scientist on an exomycology-specific project, I was sad to see him go.  We departed with warm wishes of good luck and promises to see each other when he returned.  
  
A little more than a year later, an accident befell Sen and his mission team.  The nature of the accident was never divulged by the Exploration Supervisory, but the result was the permanent death of all involved, meaning their brain tissue had been destroyed and they were unrecoverable.  Still subconsciously mourning my parents, I felt crushed.  By then I had lost quite a number of friends through accidents or misfortune, but Sen was my closest friend to die thus far.  Miserable, I asked the Exploration Supervisory to send me somewhere far away, somewhere challenging - somewhere that would keep me at my work so constantly that I wouldn't be able to brood, though I kept that part to myself.  They obliged.  I was sent to the Core region, which was mostly unexplored, and spent six years describing plants that photosynthesized microwave radiation.  It helped.  
  
Several decades later, I reported for an eight-month mission to 2 Vartan Beta, whose star system the weapons researchers had finally released to "civilian" research again.  I was surprised to see Sen was also at the briefing - not the Sen who saved my life, Sen 3, but his replacement.  Sen 4 saw me and smiled, greeting me telepathically.  Having most of Sen 3's memories, he had recognized me as a friend and acted accordingly.  I knew better, but I missed Sen and couldn't stop myself in time: I walked over to him and asked how he had been.  He launched into a description of his recent research on mushroom reproduction, hardly pausing for breath.  The description dragged on... and on... and on.  I listened politely, but Sen 3 (or 2 or Prime) - my friend - would never have been so tedious.  Sen 4 didn't tell a single joke, he didn't notice how rude he was being, he didn't ask about my work or life.  And there was an insecurity, a defensiveness about him that had never been there before - a need to build up his accomplishments, as if to prove his worth as a scientist.  When he finished his half-hour thesis on mycological gene transfer with, "I'm so looking forward to being aboard ship with you - I can tell you all the details about my other research," I excused myself, went to the Exploration Supervisory representative, and told her I couldn't participate in the mission.    
  
I saw Sen once or twice after that, when he sought me out at research conferences, but otherwise I avoided him.  Never again did I make the mistake of intentionally interacting with a dead friend's replacement.  An acquaintance, someone I didn't care much about or know well, that was fine - but someone like Sen, that was too difficult.  If it had happened with one of my parents, I don't think I could have coped.


	13. Declan Carroll

I am going to abandon the narrative thread of my early life for the moment, and instead talk about my lawyer.  Today, you see, was my monthly rehabilitation-team meeting.  Unlike last time, this was only the typical attendees: Dr Chaudhary, Dr Mwangi, myself, and Declan Carroll, _juris doctor_ , my Federation-appointed advocate, on the conference-room viewscreen.  My mandated counselor was going on about some imagined breakthrough we'd supposedly had during one of our recent sessions, and Mr Carroll was clearly not listening.  I watched him, fascinated at his brazen innattention.  He leaned out of view to reach for some object; there was a sudden crash off-camera and the sound of Mr Carroll cursing, and simultaneously the image on the screen tumbled wildly before stabilizing with the image now on its side.  From this angle we could clearly see Mr. Carroll himself, in full - not just his upper torso - as he fumbled to pick up his tabletop viewscreen.  He was wearing a standard Federation jacket on his top half, but on his bottom half he wore nothing but a pair of greyish underpants and fuzzy green socks.  Dr Chaudhary stopped midsentence and the three of us in the conference room stared speechless as Carroll restored his viewscreen to its proper place and tried to straighten his jacket and his dignity alike.  His face was as red as the strawberries we grow in the greenhouse.  
  
"Sorry," he mumbled.  "I... um, accidentally knocked it over.  You, uh, you were saying, Dr Chaudhary...?"  
  
I couldn't help myself; I burst out laughing.  Dr Chaudhary looked at me but said nothing.  Carroll's face turned redder.  
  
"Why aren't you wearing pants?" asked Dr Mwangi, sounding more confused than anything else.  
  
"Because he doesn't care about this meeting," I answered for him.  "Isn't that right?  I bet that every time you sit down to one of these progress reports, you curse the day you were assigned me.  But you've still got those loans to pay off, don't you?  So you figure you'll put forth the minimum effort required to keep you from losing your job, but not an ounce more, right, Mr Carroll?"  I grinned at him.  His face had gone nearly purple.  He looked like a beet.  (We also grow those here.)  
  
"Let's just finish the meeting as quickly as possible," said Dr Chaudhary, whose tone was distinctly infuriated.  "Mr Carroll, I expect you to wear proper attire to our next meeting.  You may not be physically present, but you are still taking part in official Federation business, and I expect you to act accordingly."  Declan Carroll nodded, mumbled something apologetic and promised to not let it happen again, and we raced through the remainder of the meeting in less than five minutes.  Carroll said about two words and cut transmission the instant that Dr Chaudhary said goodbye.  Conspicuously, he did not deny my accusation.  
  
That's my lawyer, reader.  Worst in the Federation?  Probably not.  But is he invested in me as his client?  Not a chance.  In fact, he all but told me as much, back on Terok Nor when I was preparing to go on trial for actions that would have been brushed off completely were I Romulan or Klingon or Cardassian.  (We must recall that the Federation has different standards for the conduct of Alliance species than they have for Dominion members.  The rules of engagement are set by the victors _post factum_ , after all.  Pity the species that loses a war against a legalistic society.)  
  
I first met my lawyer not long after leaving the Terok Nor infirmary the second time.  I hadn't fully healed from the Klingons, or even from the original battle, so I must have looked a sight when the redheaded Human walked into a closet-sized meeting room on the station's habitat ring to meet his client.  He knew he was defending a Vorta, but I'm not sure anyone had told him I was also a former Borg.  He missed a beat when he stepped through the door, staring at me with confusion, revulsion, and irritation.  Then, visibly shaking himself, he walked up to me, plastering a very fake smile across his face.  
  
"Declan Carroll," he said, shaking my hand vigorously, though his grip was halfhearted.  Though he was pretending interest, I got the impression he wanted to get this meeting over with as quickly as possible and couldn't care much less about its actual content.  This was just a job for him, and one he didn't much care for.  He wasn't happy to have been stuck with me of all people, but no one else would take me on, so they'd passed the assignment down the hierarchial ladder til it landed at the bottom, with him.  But he had to at least give the appearance of caring or there would be negative consequences - I could appeal the verdict, say - or maybe he'd be fired.  He didn't have the financial means to handle unemployment at the moment, but part of him feared that having a blot on his resume like me would jeopardize his prospects for advancement.  And I was able to get all this from him without his speaking a word, because his mind was open, lazy, and totally undisciplined.  A child could have gotten it.  
  
Declan Carroll sat, but I stayed standing.  "I'm innocent, Mr Carroll."  
  
"Sure you are.  Look, I'll be straight with you, uh... Arren-"  
  
"Aryl."  
  
"Yeah, Arl.  Sorry."  He pronounced my name as if it were all one sound, smushing the consonants together like a drunk Cardassian.  "Look, there's not a lot I can do for you.  You were C.O. of the fleet that blasted Cardassia.  Now, I don't like the Cardies anymore than the next guy, but the tribunal doesn't care if the Cardies had it comin' or not.  They just want to prosecute the perp."  
  
"That's what I'm trying to tell you, Mr Carroll.  By the time the order was given to bomb the planet, I was no longer in command of the fleet."  
  
"Not according to the records your Dommie folks gave us."  
  
I explained how my ship had been destroyed and how I came to be rescued.  His eyes glazed over; I'm certain he heard nothing I told him.  "I didn't even know Cardassia had been bombed until I came to Terok Nor."  
  
"Well, that's not really something we can prove, right?  You get it.  I'll just... I suppose, try to make sure you don't get life imprisonment or something."  He forced a wholly unconvincing smile and laugh.  "Anyhow, great talk, but sadly I've got to dash."  He stood again, shook my hand again, and hurried out.  The whole appointment couldn't have taken more than ten minutes.  I was flabbergasted at Mr Carroll's attitude.  When the guards came to return me to my cubicle in the cargo bay, I asked if there was any way I could request a different lawyer.  One of them laughed, but otherwise they acted as if I hadn't spoken.  Then I was alone in my cubicle, and I knew I was doomed.

**Author's Note:**

>   
>  A portrait of the author in Dominion uniform, by my friend who is an artist, [ Ginger Opal](http://gingeropal.artworkfolio.com/), who also does commissions. 
> 
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> This story is part of the LLF Comment Project, which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates feedback, including:
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